According to the press release, Kerry claimed that Russia continued supplying heavy weaponry to and training the self-defence units

US Secretary of State John Kerry

WASHINGTON, April 23. /TASS/. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has urged Russia to stay committed to provisions of the Minsk accords on peace settlement in war-torn eastern Ukraine, the U.S. Department of State said in a press release after a telephone conversation between the Secretary of State, John Kerry, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

The conversation took place on Wednesday and Kerry insisted in the course of it that Russia should keep up commitment to the Minsk accords, including the return home of Russian troops allegedly fighting on the side of the East-Ukrainian self-defence forces.

According to the press release, Kerry claimed that Russia continued supplying heavy weaponry to and training the self-defence units.

The Russian side has said more than once at various levels that all the allegations on the relocation of Russian troops to Ukraine are little more than propaganda ploys.

"There’ve never been any Russian servicemen in Ukraine and there’ll never be any because the Russian Army isn’t engaged in the fighting there," Alexander Lukashevich, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s official spokesman said at a news briefing.

Along with it, Moscow says no one has presented tangible confirmations of the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine although the Russian-Ukrainian border is under the closest possible watch on the part of Western secret services that rely heavily on reconnaissance data from satellites.

Most of the claims about Russia’s interference are based predominantly on the materials uploaded in the Internet but they cannot be regarded as sources of reliable evidence.

Russian diplomats, on their part, put up regular questions to their Western counterparts regarding the international legislative norms, on the basis of which foreign mercenaries are warring in the ranks of the Ukrainian Army.